Tag: money

There are three rules to becoming a billionaire in business. First the business rules, then the story:

Sell at a profit.

You have to sell at a profit. You can’t sell at a loss and make it up in volume. Any fool can reach 10M in sales by simply selling $10 for $1. Granted he will have lost at least 9M, but he will have achieved 10M in revenue! The point is you have to sell at a profit.

Love what you do.

You can’t sustain unless you love what you do. At least in your initial business. Sure you can tough it out for a year. Two years. Three or four. But you can’t sustain 10 to 20 years if you don’t love it. You have to love what you do (at least in your initial business!)

Have a recurring revenue model.

You MUST have a recurring revenue model. It takes too much energy to make a sale no matter what your profit margin is. Your customer must come back to you, and refer business to you, or you won’t make it.

The story of the three rules of becoming a billionaire:

Years ago I heard Ken Jones` speak. Now Ken has never been accused of having a shortage of ego (#heh, forgive me Ken). And I heard him speak at an IABC, or maybe a PRSA function in Houston when he told the story. I remember it as“so I talked to a man who was in the room with these three billionaires and he asked them “what is the secret” and their reply was the three rules.” I probably got that wrong, or paraphrased it poorly, but what I do know is as follows.

I have had 5 dba’s counting my current 13 year old company. 2 were play dbas for home businesses that I can barely remember. 1 dba (1994/95 ish) was real for web design but failed. The next was a corporation with a partner that never made real money and basically failed. (I never said I was a fast learner!) Then this corporation started in 1997 *almost* failed in the recession of 2001 and 2002 because we did not have a recurring revenue model. I learned my lesson. Follow the three rules.